Chapter 54 - Helios (Part 3)

  -In the Basement-

  The air was thick—choking, rotten, stagnant. The st of rusted iron curled into Helios’s nostrils, sharp aallic, mingling with the damp musk of a stohe dim golden light from the small, barred window barely reached the ers of the room, leaving parts of the basement in lurking, shifting shadows.

  His footsteps echoed, unnervingly loud in the oppressive silence.

  Tap. Tap. Tap.

  His father stood before the window, his hulking figure frozen in eerie stillness. The firelight flickered against his broad shoulders, painting a monstrous silhouette. A cold draft whistled through the cracks in the walls, ahe Emperor did not move.

  Something was wrong.

  Helios swallowed. The saliva in his throat felt like needles.

  "Father?" he called softly, hesitantly.

  For a moment—nothing. Then—

  "YESSSSSS, I did."

  The reply did not sound human.

  It slithered from his father’s lips, wet and guttural, like something pulled from the depths of rot and ruin. It was a voice lined with madness, with something far more terrifying than mere cruelty.

  Then—his father turned.

  *Drip*

  *Drip*

  *Drip*

  A slow, siing sound filled the space as thick, bck-red liquid slid from his father’s fingers, staining the cold stone below. His grin was a sshed wound across his face, teeth bared too wide, eyes gleaming with something feral, something irely sane.

  And in his hands—

  A corpse.

  Luxana.

  The tiny kitten hung lifeless, her fur soaked in sticky, glistening crimson. The stab wounds riddled her fragile body like gaping mouths, the kill lodged deep in her flesh, their silver hilts catg the dim light in a cruel dispy.

  The blood dribbled onto the floor, spttering like raindrops oone.

  *Drip*

  *Drip*

  Helios’s breath stopped.

  His ribs locked. His fingers cwed at his sides, his mind struggling to prehend the horror before him.

  Then—

  "LUXANA!"

  His scream ripped from his throat, raw and agonized, shaking the very walls of the basement. He lurched forward, arms outstretched, desperate to grasp her, to wake her up, to undo this nightmare—

  But the Emperor only ughed.

  A sound that was wrong, that was not meant for this world. It started as a low, guttural chuckle and grew, swelling, twisting into a hideous, screeg cackle that filled the basement like a death knell.

  "AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAA! PATHETIC! FOOLISH BOY!"

  His voice crawled into Helios’s skin, slithering into his veins, coiling around his bones, squeezing.

  "YOU ARE NOTHING LIKE HADES! NOTHING!"

  Helios’s chest caved inward, his pulse hammering like a war drum.

  "I KHE MOMENT YOU WERE BORN—YOU WERE A FAULT. A FAILURE."

  His father tilted his head, blood still dripping, dripping from his hands. His grin widened.

  "And look at you now," he sneered, voice thick with mockery. "Proving yourself right in front of me."

  Something inside Helios snapped.

  A sharp, break.

  His fingers curled around the knife lodged in Luxana’s tiny corpse. Warm blood oozed between his fingers as he pulled it free, his grip white-knuckled, shaking.

  His father saw it—

  And smirked.

  "Aww, look at him," the Emperor taunted. "Poor, little Helios. Clutg a knife like he knows what to do with it. Are you going to—"

  *STAB*

  The bde plunged into his father’s torso, sinking deep between his ribs, twisting into the soft flesh.

  A siing SCHLK echoed through the basement.

  The Emperrunted, his body jerking as he stumbled back.

  His smirk faltered.

  He looked down at the knife buried in his flesh. Then back at Helios.

  The amusement in his eyes flickered.

  "What the hell do you think you're doing?" he hissed.

  His hand lunged—

  But Helios was already moving.

  His sed bde was already in his grip.

  And it sang through the air.

  The knife drove deep into his father’s lower flesh—

  Right where no man should ever be wounded.

  The Emperor screamed, a of pain, but of pure animal rage. His knees buckled. His body crumbled downward, downward, downward, until he came eye-level with his son.

  For the first time, Helios saw fear in his father’s eyes.

  Helios smiled.

  "You scream louder than that," he whispered.

  His grip tightened.

  His father gasped, his trembling hands rising—

  *STAB*

  The bde sank into his forehead.

  A wet ch followed as the bone splintered.

  The Emperor shuddered, blood p down his face, into his mouth, into his eyes—

  *STAB*

  The knife ripped into his eye socket, pierg through soft tissue, crushing nerve endings.

  The scream that followed was inhuman, a screech that could curdle the blood of the devil himself.

  Helios didn’t stop.

  A rod. A rusted, old, fotten rod.

  He lifted it.

  Brought it down.

  *CRACK*

  The Emperor’s jaw fractured beh the force.

  *CRACK*

  His ribs caved inward, bone snapping like twigs beh a crushing boot.

  *CRAbsp;

  *CRAbsp;

  *CRACK*

  Blood spttered the walls, the ceiling, Helios’s face.

  His father twitched, his body nothing more than a ruined heap of splintered bones and mangled flesh, his chest barely rising.

  Helios, breathing hard, stepped over him.

  Then, with Luxana’s broken body still in his arms, he tilted her tiny, bleeding corpse over the Emperor’s open mouth.

  The blood dribbled.

  *Drip*

  *Drip*

  Down his throat.

  His body vulsed, his lips parting in a silent gag, but Helios only pressed down harder.

  The kitten’s blood slid past his lips, pooling in the back of his throat.

  "You’re choking," Helios murmured. "Swallow it. Like a good father."

  The Emperor twitched violently, his fingers scraping against the stone.

  "Please die happily," Helios whispered, voice eerily calm.

  Then—

  The final blow.

  The knife sank into his father’s throat.

  A gargled choke.

  A spasm.

  Then—silence.

  Helios sat back, chest rising and falling in slow, trolled breaths.

  He csped his bloodstained hands together.

  Shut his eyes.

  And whispered, "May God bless your demise. In your life, please attempt to bee a better father."

  Then—

  Footsteps.

  Slow. Careful.

  Helios did not flinch.

  He knew who it was.

  The door creaked open.

  Hades stood at the threshold.

  Their eyes met. Helios looked at Hades from over his shoulder.

  For the first time.

  For the st time.

  Then, without a word, Hades turned and walked away.

  And Helios remained, sitting in a sea of blood, unbroken.

  *CLAP*

  *CLAP*

  *CLAP*

  The sound reverberated like a death knell, each impact shattering Helios' sanity further. He whirled, eyes bulging as writhing darkness maed, pulsing with an unholy huhat made his stomach .

  A voice, a and dripping with malevolence, slithered from the void. "Well, well... UTRID little MAGGOT do we have here? A fresh MURDERER, hands still DRIPPING with the blood of innoce!"

  Helios' veins turo ice, the weight of his crime crushing him like an avanche of razors. His eyes, once vibrant, now resembled the gssy stare of a corpse. He vulsed violently, mind fracturing with visions of discovery, of flesh being fyed from bone, of SCREAMS that would never end.

  "LOOK AT ME, YOU WORTHLESS SAEAT!" The and tore through Helios' soul like barbed wire.

  He raised his gaze, not fearing the abomination before him, but the hellish torment the Empress would inflict. His tormentor. The one who'd peeled away his humanity, yer by agonizing yer.

  "Do you prehend the DEPTHS of your DAMNATION, boy?" The voice grated like a thousand rusted bdes.

  "No." Helios' reply, a pathetic whimper of defiance.

  "AHAHAHAHA!" Laughter erupted, a cacophony that threateo liquefy his brain. "Oh, you IGNORANT little WORM! Your suffering has only BEGUN!"

  Helios recoiled, bile rising in his throat as the entity's presence seemed to corrupt reality itself.

  "Listen closely, you festering WOUND oence. I'm you VENGEAhe power to FLAY THE SKIN from your eo BATHE IN THEIR ENTRAILS as they BEG FOR DEATH! The price? Your rotting, maggot-ied corpse when you finally EXPIRE IN AGONY. Do we have a DEAL, you miserable SPECK?"

  Helios, mind reeling on the precipiadness, croaked, "You're... some kind of demon? Granting wishes for my putrid flesh?"

  "YESSSS," the voice hissed, dripping with unholy ecstasy.

  Helios' eyes narrowed, weighiernal damnation against the sweet ar of retribution. "Fine. I accept your FUG deal. But you BETTER not abandon me, you ELDRITCH PIECE OF SHIT."

  "AHAHAHAHA!" The ughter shook reality as a grotesque, obsidian cw emerged from the void, dripping with ichor and promising untold horrors. Helios, hand still slick with grasped it without hesitation.

  The pact was sealed in blood and madness. And XERXES... XERXES ERUPTED ience, a force of pure AGE unleashed upon an unsuspeg world.

  12 years ter, Helios' Room, Helia Pace-

  Helios stood at the window, a book in his right hand, left arm crossed over his chest. The air hung heavy with unspoken tension, a stark trast to the serene garden beyond.

  "Look," Xerxes hissed, materializing as a writhing orb of darkness.

  Helios' eyes remained fixed on the pages. "And why?" His voice dripped with calcuted indifference.

  "It's Roro!" Xerxes' excitement alpable. "Walking with your brother."

  "And so what?" Helios' tone could have frozen hell itself.

  "Don't you like Roro?" Xerxes probed, malicious glee evident.

  "You're the one obsessed with her, Xerxes." Helios' words cut like a bde.

  "Aww... look how miserable she is with him. It should be you by her side, not that pathetic waste of flesh." Xerxes' voice oozed with poisonous suggestion.

  "Enough." Helios she book shut, his gaze finally drawn to the window.

  Princess Roxana Von Or Mera Eana Kior - "Roro" - walked arm-in-arm with Hades. Her face was a mask of indifference, while Hades wore the ing expression of a lovesick fool.

  Disgust coiled in Helios' gut as he shelved the book, searg for ao distract from the siing se.

  "She's cursed with truly abysmal luck," Xerxes mused.

  "'t argue with that," Helios muttered, feigning disi.

  "HAAAH~ This tedium is unbearable..." Xerxes whined.

  Before Helios could retort, reality ed. He found himself crouched behind a bush in the garden, mere feet from the approag couple.

  Hades and Roxana froze, shock evident on their faces.

  "Were you spying on us?" Hades' voice quavered with barely cealed panic.

  Helios' gaze flickered over Hades' shoulder. Xerxes, a mass of writhing shadows, formed a cruel, mog smile.

  "Oh please, don't ftter yourself. If I wao waste my time, I'd watch paint dry—at least that's more iing than whatever you're doing," Helios retorted, a bead of sweat betraying his cool facade.

  Roxana's eyes fshed, a predator sensing weakness. "Don't trouble yourself—I'd hate for you to strain your st remaining wit trying to sound clever. Besides, even paint drying has more purpose than your drivel."

  Helios, never oo back down, fired back. "Oh, how adorable—you string words together like a jester juggling rotten fruit. Pity they nd with the same sad spt." As he brushed past, he flicked Roxana's forehead pyfully, elig a stifled giggle from the usually stoic princess.

  Hades, clearly unfortable with the exge, attempted to smooth things over as they tiheir stroll. "Helios is like that, don't mind him."

  Roxana's silence spoke volumes, her fa imperable mask of indifference.

  Hades, worry etg lines across his face, couldn't help but ask, "Roxana, why is it just me you're so unfriendly with?"

  As Roxa his gaze, her eyes were cold enough to freeze hellfire.

  Maybe if you had a personality worth vibing with, I'd actually sider it, Roxana thought, turning her head away with the dramatic fir of someone who definitely didn't practice that move in the mirror sixteen times. But no, you're like those personality-less fuckers who think "spontaneous romance" means pig a different Shakespeare so each day from their alphabetized colle. You're seriously about as exg as watg paint dry in ay room - actually, that's unfair to paint, which at least has the decy to ge colors and probably has better chemistry than you.

  Your sock drawer probably has a dewey decimal system, and I bet you have your sneezes scheduled in your dar as "Potential Minor Disruptions (PMDs)." Your idea of living dangerously is eating yogurt one day past its "best by" date while writing a strongly worded letter to the manufacturer about their questioing system.

  You think romance is following some a rulebook. "Step 1: pliment her hair (see appendix B for weather-appropriate pliments). Step 2: Offer your arm (maintain precise 47-degree angle). Step 3: Recite appropriate seasonal poem (avoid summer sos during winter months to prevent temporal fusion)." Watg you try to flirt is like watg a diary try to do parkour - teically all the elements are there, but dear gods, at what cost?

  The most rebellious thing you've ever done is actally alphabetize your spice ra reverse order and live with the chaos for a whole three minutes before fixing it. Even yhs are chraphed - I've seen you practig them in the garden: "Wistful Sigh #7: For Use When Gazing at Distant Mountains." You probably have a spreadsheet trag your "spontaneous" hair tousles and a six-step flowchart for achieving the perfect "casual lean."

  Your idea of a wild night is staying up until 9:47 PM instead of your usual 9:45 PM, and then writing a detailed report about how this deviation affected your m routine. You're like a piece of toast that's been expio death in a philosophy lecture - teically still bread, but somehow both burnt and b at the same time. Roxana thought as she turned away dramatically, her mind a tempest of scathing observations about Hades' utter ck of personality and his painfully predictable attempts at romance.

  -Night; Roxana's Room, Helia Pace-

  The moonlight cast ahereal glow through Roxana's chamber, illuminating her curled form on the bed. Her head rested on her knees, eyes fixed on the door, lost in thought. The silence was thick, oppressive.

  *Knoock*

  Roxana's eyes jolted wide, upon hearing an unsual knock from outside, she got onto ther feet and spun around to see who's at the baly.

  The ued sound shattered the stillness. Roxana's eyes flew open, her body tensing as she spun towards the baly. There, silhouetted against the night sky, stood Helios.

  *WAVE*

  He waved, a disarming smile on his face. Roxana, a flowing white nightgown, moved towards the baly with measured steps. As she unlocked the door, Helios slipped inside, immediately making himself at home in a nearby chair.

  To be tinued...